In 1977, the Singapore government resettled the residents of the island known as Pulau Semakau to develop it as the city state’s landfill. The island was once home to some of Singapore’s indigenous community, the Orang Pulau, and provided land and sea for foraging and fishing. The Orang Pulau, meaning “people of the island” in Malay, are part of the Orang Laut, Singapore’s earliest settlers, whose name “sea people” alludes to their specialised seafaring knowledge. Today, their culture is on the brink of disappearance due to the loss of heritage spaces, displacement and rapid development. However, through activism, art and food, the descendants of the Southern Islanders are working towards the salvation of their heritage.
Firdaus, a fourth-generation Orang Laut/Pulau descendant, runs Orang Laut SG, a public archive that engages in the traditions and livelihoods of the Southern Islanders. In January 2023, Firdaus partnered with Edible Garden City (EGC) on an exhibition at their rooftop garden – a poetic conversation on the idea of “indigeneity, from community to nature”. EGC founder Bjorn Low had been working for about a year with the Orang Lauts to learn from their practices around edible plants and bring awareness to indigenous rights through the approachable topic of food.
Their exhibition Asal; Asli took place at the top of Funan Mall, where EGC’s garden is located, over Chinese New Year. It was part of the mall’s Year of the Rabbit programming, and at the bequest of the mall, was centred on the theme “Rabbit”, referring to this year’s Chinese Zodiac animal, a non-native species in Singapore. This thematic constraint opened the way for creative juxtapositions of native and non-native elements, shedding light on the place and visibility of indigeneity within the city’s cosmopolitan political economy.
Installations showcasing environments, practices, and personal anecdotes of the early settlers were erected around plots of native and non-native plants – crops which EGC supplies to local restaurants. Placed among bubu traps and fishing nets were poems inspired by traditional Orang Pulau/Laut mantras about the coast, its native species and ancestral healing. The poems were written by Firdaus in his Mother Tongue of Malay and the Orang Pulau dialect, with English translations.
